The KPMG review of the stealth fighter jet’s cost was announced in September as costing $643,535, but is now pegged at $705,854.50, according to an order paper answer to an opposition member of Parliament.
Liberal defence critic John McKay has publicly questioned why the government would be spending so much money to study something that Canadians have already paid to study twice in reports by the auditor general and the parliamentary budget officer.
“I would suggest that that...the responsible thing to do, in response to suggestions that came from the auditor general and the parliamentary budget officer, was to undertake this very comprehensive review of this long-term program,” said Mr. MacKay in a phone interview with Embassy on Nov. 26.
The government promised in July 2010 to buy 65 F-35 stealth fighters from US-based Lockheed Martin for around $15 billion, to replace Canada’s fleet of aging CF-18 fighter jets.
It spent the following winter repeating this promise, and won a spring 2011 federal election on its merits, despite Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page issuing a report in March 2011 that challenged the government’s price tag for the jets and pegged the cost at $29 billion.
But this past spring the government stopped publicly declaring its promise to buy the jets, ahead of an April report by Auditor General Michael Ferguson that accused the Department of National Defence of keeping two sets of books—one for itself and another for the public. Mr. Ferguson said the jets would instead cost $25 billion.
Soon after Mr. Ferguson’s report, the government said it would hand the procurement process to Public Works and establish a “secretariat” to oversee the process to replace the jets. Meanwhile, the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada commissioned KPMG to “independently review the cost of the F-35,” according to Public Works and Government Services Canada.
A government official said that report would be available “later this year,” according to a Nov. 22 report in The Hill Times, one that raised questions over whether the report would be made public before the House of Commons takes its winter break from Dec. 14 to Jan. 28.
Mum on new defence strategy
Mr. MacKay declined to provide details about a reported new defence strategy that the government has been working on.
A leaked letter from June 2012 from Prime Minster Stephen Harper to Mr. MacKay asked for him to make budget cuts his “first priority” as the government begins its “review” of the Canada First Defence Strategy, according to a Canadian Press report from Oct. 24.
When pressed, Mr. MacKay would only tell Embassy that he is “reviewing the whole long-term document.”
“Like any long-term document, as you would expect, this is about renewal, it’s about continuing with the progress that we’ve made, by taking into consideration fiscal pressures and the new reality that all budgets are being scrutinized for efficiencies,” he said.
“The document itself, I think everyone would agree, is a new era of investment in the Canadian Forces.”
Defence spending in Canada under the Conservatives rose by around a billion dollars each year until 2010, when the growth was cut in half. This past spring, the budget cut $1.1 billion over three years, in addition to the $1.1 billion in cuts for 2012—although defence critics argue that this should be seen more as a delay of military expansion.
Either way, the cuts have put the Canada First Defence Strategy, a military procurement and recruitment strategy from 2008, into question. The document calls for almost $500 billion to be spent on defence over 20 years.
But the government has now admitted that the document is “unaffordable,” according to briefing notes reported by Postmedia in June. And while reports back then showed that a revised CFDS would be ready by the fall, an Ottawa Citizen blog now reported Nov. 16 that this “reset” has been put on hold.
Troop cuts
Mr. MacKay also pushed back against suggestions that the Harper government should find savings by cutting full-time troops, as Canada enters a period where it is no longer running any major, long-term ground operations like in Afghanistan—and its closest ally, the United States, has stated that it does not expect to launch any either.
“When we compare ourselves to other NATO countries, we think we have it right,” said Mr. MacKay.
The Canadian military was looking at slower growth, he said, but personnel would continue to be considered “in concert” with the other areas of equipment, “readiness” and infrastructure detailed in the defence strategy.
But others say Canada should at least consider the Americans and the British who are significantly reducing the size of their conventional armies.
The Pentagon’s new military strategy, unveiled in January 2012, reads that US forces “will no longer be sized to conduct large-scale, prolonged stability operations” and suggests cuts of roughly 100,000 Army and Marines.
David Perry, a defence analyst at the Conference of Defence Associations, says the defence department should consider “whether or not it does make sense to keep the army that we have as big as its been in the past.”
“We need fighters; the question is how many and what type. We need ships; I just have a hard time squaring the fact that we’ll be able to keep 68,000 regular forces,” he said.
Original Article
Source: embassy news
Author: Carl Meyer
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